The Way You Hold My Hand
by MoreThanTonight
Summary: What do you do when the only good thing in life is taken from you? How do you stand up straight when just breathing hurts? Set after Kurt's death where Sebastian remembers old memories, and where he receives letters from Kurt that he wrote before his death to help his husband cope with the loss. Vaguely inspired by the movie P.S I Love You. Kurtbastian.


**Chapter One - Silence**

There is something about silence that can be louder than a marching band, more expressive than a novel and more excruciatingly painful than an open wound. It weasels its way into the waiting mind, expanding and intensifying until it has covered every empty crook. It stretches like a rubber band, further and further, tighter and tighter until it consumes your attention fully. You end up waiting for it to snap, almost hoping that it will. The sardonic part of your mind wants it to break, to tear.

A few seconds can feel like a lifetime.

But what is a lifetime? Sebastian thought that it would be forever, like in those crappy movies where a boy and a girl run towards the sunset as the ending credit rolls down the screen. But in reality, that is not how it works.

_Kurt Hummel-Smythe (1994-2022)_

Above those words, there was a photo of Kurt smiling back to him. The photo was taken before Kurt got sick, though the memory of how the picture was taken was a little hazy to him.

The silence around him became louder and louder and even the sniffles in the room were drowned out by the embarrassing blaring of no words uttered. Sebastian looked at the crowd in the room. Family, known faces, old friends of Kurt and new friends of them both. All of them were staring at him. Some of the faces were blank, some were sympathetic and some were expectant. It was the latter that ticked him off, as though they were waiting for him to say something magnificent. Of course, he knew what his role was. The part he was meant to play. The young widowed with his whole life in front of him. He was supposed to make a heart wrenching speech about how much he would miss Kurt and how much Kurt meant to him. _Fuck them all_, Sebastian thought to himself. There was something so sick about the thought that they were all judging him, expecting him to feel a certain way. They were expecting him to tear their hearts open one more time. Expecting him to pour his heart out to the microphone as though his memories were cheap and worthless.

Said microphone squeaked when he let out a sharp breath, effectively killing the silence in the room.

All eyes were on him and he just knew they were all waiting for him to break down, shed a tear or ten and utter series of sobbing sounds as he tried to squeeze out the last words he would ever say in the presence of Kurt. Fuck them all. This wasn't Kurt. It wasn't Kurt who was inside that beautifully decorated wooden box in white. It wasn't his Kurt who was there, cold as the night and lifeless as a stone. His Kurt was the smile that shone like the east sun, the laughter that sounded his a myriad of stars, and the intense gaze that could make the moon whither. Beautiful. Vibrant. _Alive_.

The sound of his breathing was echoed in the microphone and he became aware of his own silence. He had tried preparing a speech, but every time the pencil scratched against the rough paper, he had stopped. How do you write in words how much a person means to you? How do you constrict longing and sorrow into mere syllables? He gave up.

"Kurt…" Sebastian started, his voice feeling strangely detached and void of emotions. If people were looking at him before, they were staring at him now. His mother on the front row sent him a watery, sympathetic smile. As though he needed their sympathy. He didn't.

"There are a lot of things I could have said about Kurt, but no matter what I say, you will never understand the way I looked-.. The way I _look_ at Kurt. There is no way to understand Kurt lest you experience him for yourself."

His voice was shaky, his fingers clinging on to the microphone stand to have something to hold on to. His palms were sweaty and it felt as though he hadn't slept in a year. One year. That was all he had.

"The world lost something. I lost everything," he murmured, his throat feeling like sandpaper. He couldn't go on like this, or he would definitely break down. Somewhere in the back, he heard a woman break into sobs, but he didn't bother to see who it was. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

"Kurt.. I love you," he whispered, pulling away from the microphone as he slowly made way to the white coffin and placed the single white rose he had on the lid. Kurt had always hated red roses, whining about how awfully mainstream they were. But he liked the white ones and Sebastian always made a point out of buying him white flowers, teasing him about how he actually looked tanned when compared to the white roses.

He chose to have a close casket event, even though some of their friends protested. They wanted to see Kurt one last time. He never wanted to remember his husband for anything else than the time he was alive.

Playing the part of the mourning, yet inconspicuous husband came naturally to Sebastian who preferred to hover in the background rather than snag attention the way some of Kurt's old friends did. He didn't blame them. Everyone had their own way of coping and Rachel's was to drink a glass too many at the wake and talk loudly about how much Kurt meant to her. Sebastian's coping mechanism was the nurse a glass of whiskey on a sofa in the corner of the room. Occasionally he was forced to make eye contact with people, but mostly they didn't disturb him. Mostly.

"Will you be okay, Bas?" he heard a familiar voice behind him. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, clenching them as tight as they would go. The last time he heard that nickname was from Kurt's lips.

"I'll live, Maman. He won't," he muttered bitterly as he put down his glass after taking a large gulp. The whiskey burned in his throat, spreading warmth through his body. Maybe he should become an alcoholic. That would have been a nice career. Quit his job and just drink away all the insurance money. Maybe die from liver failure in a few years.

The couch shifted slightly as his mother sat down beside him, so close that he felt like suffocating. He could smell the sweet wine on her breath, more prominent than usual. It was funny how people had their own ways of coping.

It seemed as though his mother didn't know what to say. Yet again, he couldn't blame her. What do you tell your son who had just become widowed? But that was the problem, wasn't it? It was no one's fault. No one could be blamed.

At first Sebastian was angry. He was angry at the doctor who delivered the news, mad at himself for not even discovering that Kurt was sick before it was too late, angry at Kurt for not being more angry, furious with the surgeons for not being able to cure his husband. Hot, blinding rage was all he could remember. In retrospect, he wished he had used more time savouring the time he had left with Kurt. But in the end everything was meaningless, wasn't it?

With an amber glass in his hand and the smell of soil fresh on his suit from burying his husband's coffin, everything seemed meaningless.

"I know that it doesn't seem that way, Bastian, but one day it won't hurt that much anymore."

Sebastian turned to the side to face his mother. He was tired. He felt so fatigued that he couldn't muster the energy or the willpower to glare at her. To yell that it would never go away. How could something that felt so all-consuming ever go away? The memory of Kurt wasn't like a painting on the wall that would eventually fade away. Or maybe it would. Sebastian didn't know what was worse. To live with the pain of remembering or the guilt of forgetting.

"..Before you bite my head off, I want to let you know that Kurt wanted me to tell you that."

"Kurt.. told you..?" Sebastian asked in confusion. As far as he knew, his husband and Cecile Smythe were cordial and friendly at the best, but long distance calls to Paris were expensive and they only ever talked during Christmas or Sebastian's birthday.

Mrs. Smythe nodded, a look of sympathy filling her eyes as she took hold of Sebastian's hand and squeezed it. Sebastian didn't have the energy to pull away.

"He wrote to me."

It was much too soon. Sebastian didn't want to hear what Kurt had told his mother, he didn't want to know what he wrote to her before he died. Right now he just wanted to sit on this couch, drink his whiskey and mourn his loss the way he knew how to; by acting invisible.

His lack of words must have been an indicator enough, for his mother left him alone the way he wanted to be. He had no idea how much time had passed. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours. He only noticed that any time had passed at all when he tried to take another gulp of whiskey, but instead his lips scratched against the empty, smooth glass where a single amber drop snaked its way into his waiting mouth.

"How are you doing, Sebastian?"

Sebastian looked up. "Blaine," he whispered, his voice cracking halfway.

He hadn't seen Blaine since before it happened. He still couldn't say it. He couldn't even think it, the thought so paralyzing and scary. As though it would be more real when he started thinking it. As though the memory of Kurt would fade away. But sooner or later he would have to face reality. Maybe later, but just not now.

Blaine didn't need an answer. It wasn't a question he wanted answered either. He knew his best friend; he knew what it was like for him. "I'm sorry," Blaine whispered, hugging Sebastian tightly.

Sebastian buried his head in Blaine's shoulder, the familiar feeling of his loose curls tickling his cheek more comforting than anything else around him. No one knew Kurt the way Blaine did. No one else had the same connection they did and all though Blaine didn't know Kurt the way Sebastian did, but it was the closest he could get. All the hours they spent on the couch cuddled together, the drinking nights together where Kurt and Sebastian would try to hook Blaine up with a boy. All those rainy Sundays spent inside playing scrabble together. Those things they did as three best friends and not just KurtandSebastian and Kurt's ex-boyfriend Blaine.

"I know you are," Sebastian whispered, his voice tight from being on the verge of tears. "That's the worst fucking thing. You are one if the few people who actually mean it when you say it," his voice broke and Sebastian cleared his throat. "They don't get it, Blaine. They don't get how much I love him. Th-They don't see what we had.. Most of them still remember me as that high school idiot I was.."

Blaine's hands stroke his back slowly, sighing as he did. As warm and comforting as the silent reassurance was, it wasn't Kurt. Kurt would have known what to say to make him feel better. Yes, Blaine understood him better than anyone else, but he didn't fill the massive void that Kurt left behind.

"Will you be alright?" Blaine asked, planting a friendly kiss to his forehead.

"I don't know, B. I don't know. He was always here for me, you know?"

"I know, Seb, I know,"

Despite the multiple prompts from his mother to spend the night at the hotel she was staying at and Blaine's offers to stay at his place so that he didn't have to be alone, Sebastian still went back to their apartment. Their apartment. It was still on both their names, Sebastian Hummel-Smythe and Kurt Hummel-Smythe, as a joined entirety, a single species.

It was only when he locked the door behind him and saw the apartment that looked the way it always did that it hit him. Kurt wasn't there anymore. The toothbrush in the bathroom, that he hadn't removed even though Kurt had been staying at the hospital for the past few weeks, was still there. Kurt's clothes still hung in their closet. On the dining room table he could see Kurt's sketches of the new designs he was working on. And right there, standing alone, he felt waves of memories hit him in a furious way, as though they were demanding to be remembered.

"_Sebastian! Put me down!"_ _Kurt giggled, but he didn't do anything to resist his boyfriend from pinning him to the wall of their new apartment. The hardwood floor was filled with boxes and the faded yellow walls were empty. It could have been anyone's apartment that they randomly tumbled into, but it was their own. Their first apartment together. Their first proper commitment to each other. Kurt felt his skin tingle with the realization that _this was it_. This was their future together and what little fear he had of losing Sebastian was slowly trickling away. It wasn't replaced with the cold feeling of taking their relationship for granted, but rather the security that they would last. _

"_What is the fun in that, Princess? I thought the whole point of buying a place for us was so that I can christen every surface of the apartment by fucking you senseless," Sebastian laughed, his lips grazing over the soft skin of Kurt's neck. He could feel Kurt breathing, he could feel the tiny vibrations of his skin when he inhaled and it was as though time stood still around them. It didn't really matter that it was late and that they both had classes to go to the next day. They were in college; they could afford to skip once or twice. _

_The had been together for one year and during that time Sebastian had come to know Kurt's body almost as well as his own, but it wasn't enough. It didn't feel like it would ever be enough. _

_He could never get tired of that little whimper he elicited from Kurt when he bit down on his neck, never get tired of that shiver he got when he let his cold hands run over Kurt's bare chest. Within seconds, Kurt's clothes were on the floor, save for his cerulean boxer briefs. _

"_Are you going to fuck me, Bas?" Kurt asked with a coy smile playing on his lips, the very existence of it teasing Sebastian, urging to give him more. "No," Sebastian replied, dragging his tongue over the bite mark on Kurt's neck that was getting clearer and clearer by the second. It was worth it just to see Kurt's eyebrows arch, as though he was daring Sebastian to refuse to give him something he wanted._

_Sebastian chortled and sunk down to his knees, his nose merely inches away from Kurt's crotch. His boxer clad erection twitched to Sebastian's delight. "I'm going to do something so much more fun than that."_

_Without further warning, Sebastian pulled down Kurt's cotton boxers and licked up his shaft, causing Kurt to shudder against him. "Bas.." he whispered, grabbing a fistful of Sebastian's hair to guide him towards his cock again, afraid that Sebastian would leave him hanging. _

"_So impatient," Sebastian chastised and licked his lips slowly to wet them exaggeratedly. Kurt could see the glint of wet spit of Sebastian's lips, letting him know what was to come. Or rather _who_ was to come. _

"_Shut up and blow me," he breathed, his voice deep from lust as his fingers carded through Sebastian's hair, gently coaxing him to give him what he wanted. _

"_Your wish is my c-.." Sebastian was cut short by Kurt forcing his lips back to his attention seeking cock. Chuckling as he obliged, he wrapped his pliant lips around Kurt's flushed erection and slid all the way down to the base. The best part about giving head was being able to gauge Kurt's reaction, to be able to decipher every single moan, to dip into and relish every tremble in his body. It was almost too easy for forget his own cock that was straining against his dark wash jeans, or the fact that Kurt was entirely naked while he was still wearing clothes. _

_He could feel Kurt tense when he started to bob his head up and down in a torturously slow pace. Moaning when his boyfriend roughly pulled his hair to make him go faster, he gave into the mesmerising routine of bouncing his head up and down Kurt's shaft, rolling his tongue over Kurt's sensitive head and flicking it to get just the right moans from him. He could tell that his boyfriend was close just from how tense he was and how hard he was gripping his hair. "Bas.. Oh god.. I'm close.." Kurt whined, as though Sebastian needed a warning, but he didn't realise how well Sebastian knew him. _

_Reaching his fingers to tease Kurt's balls, Sebastian sucked even harder, moaning obscenely. At some point – he wasn't quite sure when – he gave up control and just let Kurt fuck his throat like an instrument. Relaxing his throat as much as he could, he let Kurt lose himself in throws of passion and unintelligible moans. It didn't matter. He trusted him enough to give up control. All Sebastian could think of was the way Kurt looked, his hair messy, his skin flushed and his bottom lip marked from biting too hard. Kurt's eyes were shut close in concentration and his lips were barely parted, easing out his laboured breath. Sebastian could feel Kurt's heart beat on his skin, he could feel his boyfriend's desperation as his mouth was used in the most delicious of ways. He felt light-headed, elated and more than turned on, but when he heard Kurt's heart skip a beat just before he came in spurts into his mouth, he couldn't help but moan loudly around Kurt's cock and lap up every single drop as though it was ambrosia while Kurt stroke his hair. Kurt slumped tiredly against the wall, his chest rising and falling rapidly. "Love you, Bas.."_

"_You are not too bad yourself, Princess," Sebastian chuckled, and when he looked up at his boyfriend, he saw a glimpse of their future together – a future he found himself desperately wanting. A well furnished apartment in the heart of the city, the domestic life while eating Chinese food on the couch, falling asleep to this man in his arms every single night… He wanted it all. _

Sebastian pulled himself out of the memory and slumped down on the couch. The silence was deafening, even though he could hear the sound of cars and traffic. When was silence such a problem for him? The couch was too big, too empty and he didn't even feel the ghost of a presence there. Just nothing. Emptiness.

To drive it away, he flopped his legs up and lay down horizontally as he looked at the ceiling. It was once a faded yellow, but Kurt painted all the walls off-white. Or vanilla or cream, or whatever Kurt called it. He wasn't so sure. In retrospect he wished that he had paid attention to the little things Kurt said that he didn't understand at that time. There was so much he didn't understand. So much that made him feel insignificant and small.

Unable to handle the silence anymore, he turned on the TV. He wasn't planning on sleeping tonight. He had no idea how to sleep in their bed without Kurt, but most of all he had no idea what to do now. The entire previous year he had spent doing everything and anything with Kurt, savouring every single moment they had left together. The last months he spent desperately searching for a cure to at least speed down the tumour. The last week he spent saying goodbye. There was always something at the end of the day. Something that he knew that would come. Even after Kurt's death, there was the funeral that he had to organise. But now, there was nothing. Nothing in the horizon and nothing for him to do. Emptiness. Silence.

After a few hours he wasn't any smarter. He still didn't have a plan, but he drowsed into a restless sleep with a soap opera playing in the background.

**A/N: Thank you for reading the first chapter. This is mainly the background for the story and Sebastian will get the first letter in the next chapter. Let me know what you think :) Nervous as usual, oops. **


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